I.T. Times
Volume 5, No 5 Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis April 1997


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Microsoft Grant Aids UC Davis Students

Political Science professor Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith is beginning to feel less like a computer science instructor these days. Thanks to a gift from the Microsoft Corporation of 60 workstation licenses for FrontPage 97, he can spend less time teaching his students about Web site construction and more time on politics and law.

Students in Wandesforde-Smith's classes, which include Environmental Politics and International Law, work in groups on a range of research tasks, using both library and Web resources, and then create Web sites to display and publish their research and writing. "This is the modern equivalent of the traditional college term paper, because it combines the teaching of basic and time-honored scholarly skills with the cutting-edge technologies our students must know to be competitive and successful in today's world," says Wandesforde-Smith.

Until now, substantial class time had been spent in computer labs, teaching students Web site construction and design, including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, a code used to create Web pages). But FrontPage 97 allows users to create Web pages with the point and click of a mouse. Students can create, edit, and publish complex and attractive Web pages after mastering just the fundamentals of HTML.

The new software came to Wandesforde-Smith and UC Davis from a competitive grants program through which Microsoft makes its products available to college teachers and students across the United States. The award is the first of its kind made by Microsoft to UC Davis, and breaks new ground for the company as well. Past awards have supported computer science and engineering but not the social sciences or humanities. With the new software installed in the 27 Olson and Surge IV computer labs, students of all majors will benefit when they use the labs on a drop-in basis.

Wandesforde-Smith sees the significance of this gift going beyond his own political science classes: "I hope it's the start of a broader and continuing link between Microsoft and UC Davis that works to the benefit of all our students. Microsoft sees UC Davis as a place where faculty and students together are doing innovative and worthwhile things with technology. I think that's a big step forward, for all of us."